everything a big bad wolf could want.

I hate to admit it but I'm already getting excited about decorating. In truth, I've been excited about decorating this house since the second I first walked inside. Our last place was a very streamlined apartment in a 1950's era building - with a long hallway and large rooms. It was bright but we didn't have windows on every wall. There was a lot of room for large artwork and low, long furniture.

This house is very different than what we've been used to. For one, the windows are lower to the ground and more abundant. There are also many doors. This doesn't leave a lot of wall space for large paintings and long furniture that's more than two feet off of the ground! A few weeks ago I had to make the hard decision to sell one of my favorite pieces of furniture, a vintage, long George Nelson "Thin Edge" teak credenza. The only place we could use it is in the attic... and it's so heavy, I wouldn't want to ask anyone to carry it up there! We sold it yesterday and as hard as I thought it would be to let it go, I now actually feel good. I know that it will eventually be sold (it went to a dealer) to someone else who will have the space to truly enjoy it.

So anyway, here comes my first decor commitment to this house: I purchased wallpaper for the foyer.

I chose Cole and Son's "Woods" wallpaper in what I can only call greige. On the Cole and Son website the color is identified as "69/12149." When I first viewed it in the "New Contemporary II" book in the wallpaper store, I immediately thought "how beige." I also thought ick about all of the other colors that "Woods" comes in (especially the white, too bright.) No problem, I didn't really want to use "Woods" anymore, right? I've been coveting that wallpaper for a few years but have now seen it in every design magazine and mentioned on a million blogs. Why would I want to be like everyone else anyway? I much prefer Cole and Son's "Cow Parsley" in black or "66/7046" anyway, right? Well, actually no. Once I saw the aforementioned wallpapers in the foyer and under the right lighting 69/12149 just jumped out at me! I'll give some props to 69/12151 too - very pretty, but Fernando shot it down (too lavender.) And "Cow Parsley" in 66/7046? Well she seemed a little too busy for our small foyer.

So now here I am with my very own "Woods" wallpaper. And I ordered it in the color that I thought would be the ugliest. But you see, it does this strange thing when you hold it up to the walls in my foyer in daylight - it turns a lovely silvery grey. Magic.